From London, United Kingdom to Boston, United States - April, 2008

It's been a while (April 2007, actually) but this went very well, although somewhat more expensive than I'd hoped. I moved to the UK in 1999, bringing my ZG1000/Concours/GTR1000 with me - a large, heavy fully faired touring bike. After driving it all over Europe (including a trip to Russia) I decided it was too big for the UK, but being sentimental, didn't want to sell it, so I shipped it back to the USA where I had a place to keep it.

James Cargo was the best outfit I could find back then, and they did a great job. They came to central London with a van and picked up the bike, plus about half a bike's worth of kit (extra silencers, parts, riding gear.. a lot of stuff) and then took it and crated it, using a leftover BMW wood/cardboard crate.

The whole process took about three weeks. I was kept up-to-date as much as possible but as discussed, ship times can change. As it turned out, the bike arrived pretty much as planned. I was in the US at the time and it cleared the port and Customs in one day. BUT - keep in mind this was a US-made bike, previously registered in the US with an existing US "title" (ownership) document. I suspect a "foreign" bike may have been more problematic and/or required the owner to be present. The US is horrible on emissions (EPA) so you can only "visit" for a limited time with non-compliant (i.e. anything not originally sold in the US) vehicles.

I didn't hav eto do a thing - the bike (crated) was loaded on a local delivery service truck and delivered to me (about 100 miles/160 km from the port) a day or two later.